Separability of dependents from VP in English: Beyond the argument/adjunct distinction

Abstract This paper considers the traditional idea about English that syntactic operations targeting Verb Phrase (VP), including do so -anaphora, do what -pseudoclefting and VP-fronting, can separate adjuncts but not arguments from the VP. I argue that, in each case, the argument/adjunct distinction (A/AD) makes incorrect predictions and that the behavior of verbal dependents is more accurately explained without reference to the A/AD. With do so -anaphora and do what -pseudoclefting, I show that the behavior of a variety of Prepositional Phrase (PP) dependents is better explained by the lexical properties of the verb do : a PP’s ability to occur with do so -anaphora/ do what -pseudoclefting depends on the PP’s independent compatibility with the lexical verb do. On VP-fronting, I show that apparent stranding of arguments and adjuncts poses major problems for A/AD-based analyses and suggest apparent stranding is better analyzed as extraposition. These results weaken an important motivation for the idea that adjuncts attach to a higher projection in the VP than arguments do.